Presidents Reagan and Bush could ajfòrd to ignore the Black Caucus. President Clinton can't Mjùme calls it "the new arithmetic. " death-penalty posture. No common ground was found, and finally an ex- asperated Clinton decreed that the crime bill should move forward without the provision or risk being lost alto- gether. Mfume, however, refused to play the good soldier; instead of quietly acceding to the President's decision, he publicly scolded the White House for its lack of "respect" and declared that the majority of the caucus would op- pose the legislation, seriously endanger- ing the bill's chances. That forced the White House to scramble, with Chnton aides lob- bying the caucus in the hope of achieving one of the Administration's trademark squeak-by victories. Mfume says that the caucus has "non- negotiable" demands on health care and on the President's pro- posed welfare reform as well. But no issue has been more associ- ated with the Black Caucus than the Clinton Administration's policy on Haiti. The common perception in Wash- ington that the United States plans to return exiled President Jean- Bertrand Aristide to power through military intervention, possibly as early as this week, cred- its (or blames) the Black Caucus for this turn in American for- eign policy. For the past few weeks, Mfume has been a hot topic on the political airwaves, from Rush Limbaugh, who ridicules the influence of the caucus, to John McLaughlin, who referred to him as "General Mfume" and said he "is telling the Secretary of Defense how to actually conduct the . . " InvaSIon. While it may be absurd to assert, as Republican Senator Larry Pressler does, that American Haiti policy is now "for- eign policy by the Black Caucus," and that invasion is a quid pro quo for giv- e ing up the racial-justice provision of the crime bill, it is plain that the Clinton Administration's evolving Haiti policy is driven by domestic politics and that the caucus is a central factor therein. The Black Caucus's official position, adopted in a resolution last October, calls for a "protective military force" to insure Aristide's return. From the moment of Aristide's re- moval from office by the Haitian mili- tary, in September of 1991 the caucus has made his return the "central focus" it of its Haiti position, and has-along with Randall Robinson, the executive director of the TransAfrica lobby- forced the issue to the top of Clinton's foreign-policy agenda. (Mfume and the caucus are said to have brokered the ending of Robinson's hunger strike with the Clinton Administration) Even before Aristide arrived in Washington with his government-in-exile, he had been visited in Venezuela by Mfume and New York Representative Charles Rangel. Allegiance to Aristide and an 27 insistence that he be returned to office are, in fact, two of the only issues on which the caucus has been unanimous. Significantly, the Black Caucus has succeeded in framing the Haiti problem as a social-justice issue, rather than as a foreign-policy issue, thus giving its position the weight of moral righ- teousness. In a letter to President Clin- ton, for example, Representative Major Owens, of New York, likened the President's situation to that of Abraham Lincoln before the Eman- ... cipation Proclamation, thereby equating the rein- stallation of Aristide to the freeing of American slaves. This line is lent force by the very real dis- crepancy between Ameri- can policy toward Haitian refugees (interdiction) and Cuban refugees (the _ welcome mat); the Hai- tian problem is, inevi- tably, a racial issue. "If Haitians were not black," Mfume says, "we would not sit back and watch this murder occur." Mfume is a signal figure in politics today: a new kind of black leader, arisen from outside the civil-rights struggle, and a new kind of politician, wired to a power source beyond the traditional structures. "Power must take on the personifica- tion of leadership to be precise and focussed," Jesse Jackson, whose own star Mfume has occasionally eclipsed, says. "Kweisi em- bodies that personifica- tion. He's a well-studied, smart, dedicated person, who has integ- rity and is fearless." T HE Father's Day service this year at St. Edward's Catholic Church in west Baltimore was no greeting-card homage to dear Dad but, rather, a call to arms in a war for cultural survival. St. Edward's, like many A:fìi.can- American congregations, calls the holiday Men's Day, and uses it as an occasion to focus on the imperilment embedded in the daily lives of young men in the black